Processing vote-by-mail ballots (also referred to as “absentee ballots”) is normally a manual process. Due to the nature of voting, the volume of ballots to be processed on a given day varies dramatically from zero ballots between elections to thousands or millions of ballots per day during peak election times. Manually processing is slow and typically requires large number of temporary workers to be brought in and trained for peak election times. Many preliminary tasks such as determining whether the ballot is valid, has a signature and whether the ballot envelope contains all necessary documents, must be done by a single individual or passed to a number of individuals to complete the process. If a single individual checks for all aspects of ballot validity, certain ones may be missed. Furthermore, it is necessary to open the ballot envelopes to determine whether they contain all necessary documents if the process is performed manually.
Manual sorting of ballots, such as by precinct, can be very time consuming and easily subject to human error.
Keeping records of manually sorted ballots can also be problematic, because of time needed and possibility of errors when entering significant amounts of data. It is advantageous to create detailed reports of the actions taken on each ballot, such as information read from the ballot, what information was verified, which bin the ballot was placed into, which batch the ballot was placed into, and where images of the ballot and/or signature, if any are located, etc. However, it can be nearly impossible to keep these records, or keep them with the desired accuracy. As has been seen in some recent elections, it is imperative that ballots are processed accurately, all valid ballots are processed, and all invalid ballots rejected. Accordingly, as manual ballot processing methods are slow, prone to errors, create opportunities for fraud, require more people, and delay reporting of election results due to slower processing times, there is a need for an improved system.